The key to understanding the Republicans election rigging is that they win considerable more seats with LESS votes than their opponents. In other words, this is not a fair system of government which makes sense since GOP isn't a democratic institution but a tyrannical and authoritarian one.

For those concerned about gerrymandering and its effects on our democracy, the 2018 elections offered some good news and some bad news.

The good news is, a lot of voters appear to be sick of it. Michigan voters, for example, approved sweeping election changes, including the creation of an independent redistricting commission that will be responsible for drawing congressional district lines.

In Colorado and Missouri, voters agreed to overhaul the redistricting process to end gerrymandering. (Utah may have done the same thing, but votes on the state’s Proposition 4 are still being tallied.)

The bad news is, gerrymandered districts still exist across much of the country. Cleveland.com reported yesterday:

[Republicans in Ohio’s state legislature] scored their wins for 63 percent of the seats while collecting just over 50 percent of the total vote.

This is a lot like what happened in Ohio’s 16 congressional districts, where Republicans won 75 percent of the seats with just 52 percent of the overall vote.

These are two fresh examples of how skillfully gerrymandered legislative districts can sway the balance of power – especially when one party is in full control of drawing the maps as was the case for the current districts.

Regular readers may recall that Ohio policymakers approved some modest reforms to the redistricting process in May, but those changes won’t be implemented until after the 2020 Census.

Of course, the Buckeye State isn’t the only one where gerrymandering was an issue. Mother Jones’ Ari Berman reported yesterday that in Wisconsin, Democratic candidates managed to win a majority of the state Assembly votes, but thanks to the lines drawn by Republicans, it’s the GOP that will hold a majority of the seats.

The Washington Post also reported this week, “Majorities of voters in at least three battleground states – Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina – chose a Democrat to represent them in the state’s House of Representatives. Yet in all three states, Republicans maintained majority control over the chamber despite winning only a minority of votes.”

A separate Washington Post piece highlighted a similar imbalance in North Carolina at the congressional level.

These fights, however, are far from over. Not only are more and more Americans souring on gerrymandered maps, but reform advocates are turning to the judiciary with renewed optimism about court-imposed changes. There’s a new lawsuit in North Carolina, for example, that appears likely to reach the state Supreme Court, and as a Slate piece explained this week, “The case could give Democrats a real shot at retaking the legislature in 2020, or at least contesting it on an even playing field.”

All these years under Republican rule and Florida still can't do elections! Does fit the Republican pattern though.A Florida Recount? Where Have We Seen This Before? - In what appears to be the worst 'Back to the Future' sequel yet, another election is heading toward a recount in Florida.

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Like everything else, where is equal justice under the law? Equal application of our laws? There's an emergency hearing over this race going on right now in Broward County and you know, if you're gonna follow the law, it is clear that they have purposefully violated the federal law and Florida state law.

Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) aren’t the only ones who’ve peddled election-related conspiracy theories – Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Marco Rubio (R) have, alas, dipped their toes in the same misguided waters – but the president and the governor have been more aggressive than most and have done the most damage to their credibility.

Let’s start with Scott, who has a dwindling lead against Sen. Bill Nelson (D), and who dispatched Florida law enforcement officials to find evidence to back up his ideas. That didn’t turn out well.

There is some question, however, about whether some of those votes were consistent with Florida’s election laws. Politico reported yesterday:

The election supervisor in hurricane-wracked Bay County allowed some voters to illegally cast ballots by email – an act specifically prohibited by Gov. Rick Scott when he issued an emergency order to expand voting opportunities there after the storm.

Despite the prohibition, Bay County Election Supervisor Mark Andersen says he stands by his decision in the Republican-rich county after Hurricane Michael. In all, he said, 147 voters returned ballots through email but only 10 were purely email-to-email interactions. In the other cases, voters used fax machines to email their ballots in, which is currently permitted by state law for overseas voters.

Obviously, circumstances matter. Bay County was hit hard by Hurricane Michael, and local communities are still struggling to recover. Officials in the area made a conscious choice to – let’s be charitable – bend the rules, allowing some voters in the country to cast ballots in ways that fall outside state election laws.

My point is not that those voters should be punished or that their votes should be discounted. I am curious, though, about Republicans’ apparent disinterest in how Bay County administered the election.

Rick Scott, for example, has been only too pleased to peddle absurd conspiracy theories about “widespread fraud” in south Florida, specifically in counties that vote heavily Democratic. The Republican’s claims, echoed by Donald Trump, quickly fell apart when Scott was asked to substantiate his allegations.

But about 500 miles to the north, we can now say with some certainty that voters in a heavily Republican district did, in fact, cast ballots in ways that conflict with Florida law.

Stacey Abrams, beaten but not defeated, vows voting rights fightRachel Maddow reports on Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams' non-concession speech in which she acknowledged that she was out of legal options to contest Brian Kemp's victory, but vowed continued legal action over Georgia's voting rights abuses under Kemp.

Trump thinks Georgia race was ‘stacked against’ Kemp (it wasn’t)In his latest Fox News interview, which aired yesterday, Donald Trump was eager to defend the Republican Party’s poor showing in the midterm elections by arguing that he personally looked good. The president was specifically excited about Georgia’s gubernatorial race, which ended late on Friday afternoon with Brian Kemp’s (R) victory.

Referring to some of Stacey Abrams’ (D) high-profile supporters, Trump told Fox News’ Chris Wallace, “I won against President Obama and Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama in a great state called Georgia for the governor. And it was all stacked against Brian and I was the one that went for Brian and Brian won.”

I can appreciate at some level why the president is eager to boast about the results, but the idea that “it was all stacked against” Brian Kemp is demonstrably ridiculous. In fact, the exact opposite is true: it was all stacked in Kemp’s favor, thanks to Kemp’s own efforts to ensure his own success. Mother Jones’ Ari Berman summarized this nicely:

There were a multitude of voting problems in the gubernatorial race between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams. Eligible voters didn’t show up on the registration rolls or were purged by the state. Thousands of Georgians had their registrations put on hold and weren’t sure if they’d be able to vote. Some voters were wrongly flagged as non-citizens; others had their ballots rejected because poll workers told them they had the wrong ID. Hundreds of polling places were shuttered before the election, and other precincts had four-hour lines. Absentee ballots were rejected because of signature mismatches or other minor errors. One Abrams adviser described it as “death by a thousand paper cuts.” […]

We don’t know yet – and might never know – how many people were disenfranchised or dissuaded from voting in the state. But it’s clear that Kemp did everything in his power to put in place restrictive voting policies that would help his candidacy and hurt his opponent, all while overseeing his own election.

Georgia’s system didn’t fail as a result of neglect or incompetence. Rather, Kemp, in his capacity as Georgia’s secretary of state and chief elections official, designed a process that worked exactly as intended.

There’s a debate underway in some circles about whether it’s fair for Democrats to use the word “stolen” in reference to this race, and the language certainly matters.

But let’s not miss the forest for the trees: Brian Kemp really did oversee a massive purge of the voter rolls. He really did needlessly freeze thousands of voter registration applications. He really did close key polling places. He really did falsely accuse Georgia Democrats of an illegal “hack” just days before Election Day.

On November 8, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) claimed that “democrat lawyers” are trying “to change the results of [the] election” this week in Florida, a conspiracy theory that numerous conservative media figures are also running with. Rubio’s tweets argued that votes still being tallied, which are bringing a number of races within the margin to trigger an automatic recount, shouldn’t be counted, in part because the “law requires counties report early voting & vote-by-mail within 30 minutes after polls close.” In reality, Rubio botched his description of Florida law, and the officials in charge of counting the votes are Republican appointees.

Local reporters immediately debunk Rubio-inspired conspiracy theory

Miami New Times: Republican appointees are in charge of recount. Shortly after Rubio tweeted his baseless charge of Democrats trying to steal the election alongside an erroneous interpretation of Florida election law, the Miami New Times debunked his allegations of illegal partisanship on the part of election officials. From the Miami New Times:

Though Rubio is correct that the Broward elections department absolutely sucks, the office has never been accused (credibly, at least) of tampering with election results or illegally tipping the scales toward one candidate. There's also zero evidence that the Democratic "lawyers" Rubio references are up to anything more nefarious than normal.

Rubio is also leaving out some really important details. For one, [Supervisor of Elections Brenda] Snipes was a [former Republican Gov.] Jeb Bush appointee, so she's not exactly an obvious partisan. Two: The person in charge of election recounts at the state level is Secretary of State Ken Detzner, whom [Gov. Rick] Scott appointed to the job. Detzner and Scott were repeatedly accused of working together to hatch schemes designed to suppress Democratic votes over the past eight years. It is, frankly, a blatant conflict of interest for Detzner to oversee Scott's recount, but Rubio isn't complaining about that here. [Miami New Times, 11/8/17]

Sun Sentinel reporter: Rubio is wrong, “it's all there on the Div. of Elections website of the state [Rubio] represent[s].” In response to Rubio’s tweets, Sun Sentinel reporter Dan Sweeney explained that Rubio was botching the rules about the reporting of vote-by-mail ballots. As Sweeney explained, the 30-minute Election Day deadline Rubio referenced is only applicable to tabulated votes. In fact, unofficial results are due “by noon the fourth day after the election -- two days from now.”

Florida law requires all early votes and TABULATED vote by mail to be posted then. Unofficial returns have to be submitted to Sec. of State by noon the fourth day after the election -- two days from now. It's all there on the Div. of Elections website of the state you represent.

Florida Statutes, 102.141(4)(b). Applicable state law confirms that Rubio omitted the fact that it is tabulated vote-by-mail results which are due “within 30 minutes after the polls close.” Furthermore, the statute allows for circumstances of delay that “do not permit periodic updates as required” as long as the department of state is notified:

(b) The canvassing board shall report all early voting and all tabulated vote-by-mail results to the Department of State within 30 minutes after the polls close. Thereafter, the canvassing board shall report, with the exception of provisional ballot results, updated precinct election results to the department at least every 45 minutes until all results are completely reported. The supervisor of elections shall notify the department immediately of any circumstances that do not permit periodic updates as required. Results shall be submitted in a format prescribed by the department. [Online Sunshine, accessed 11/08/18]

Election officials clearly explained the reporting and certification timeline in 2018 and 2016. The reporting rule Rubio is misstating is not new. The Florida Department of State issued a “Timeline for Reporting and Certification of 2018 General Election Results,” which mirrored the one from 2016 and directed interested readers to 102.141(4)(b), the relevant statute. [Florida Department of State Timeline 2018, 2016]

Both before and after Rubio's tweets, right-wing media have gone into overdrive claiming that Democrats are trying to “steal” the election

Fox’s Sean Hannity: Democrats are descending on Florida and “my sources are telling me that … more votes are just appearing out of nowhere from [Democratic Sen. Bill] Nelson and Gillum.”

The Federalist’s Sean Davis: “Democrats are actively working to steal another election in Florida.”

Newsmax’s John Cardillo: “Don’t be shocked when Brenda Snipes, Broward County Sup. of Elections, mysteriously ‘finds’ more votes for Gillum.”

Radio host and professional Trump sycophant Bill Mitchell: “Typical Broward County shenanigans. 10's of thousands of votes being ‘found’, all magically for the Democrats. Never changes. Stay tuned.”

Mitchell: “Gillum won Broward with 68% of the vote. If all of these ‘magical new votes’ being found in Broward for Gillum exceed 68%, you know some BS is happening there.”

Twitter troll Laura Loomer: “Doesn't it feel like the Democrats are trying to steal the elections in Arizona , Georgia, and Florida? This is so disturbing. So much voter fraud.”

Fox’s Kevin Corke: “Sounds like [Rubio] is saying the #Democrats are trying to #steal an election. Paging the @TheJusticeDept.”

Conservative Review’s Daniel Horowitz: “How many races are we going to allow them to steal with these provisional ballots, lawfare, judicial supremacy, and illegal and unethical ballot harvesting?”

FoxNews.com's Stephen Miller quote-tweeted New York Post columnist John Podhoretz’s tweet that “Rubio is effectively accusing the elections supervisor in Broward County of holding votes in reserve ... to use tactically in a recount,” writing, “Rubio is correct.”

MSNBC’s Hugh Hewitt: Broward County officials are basically asking Democrats, “How many [votes] do you need.”

Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk: "Florida! Stay vigilant, the left has stolen races before with voter fraud and finding ballots after the election is over If you live in Florida volunteer for the recounts, don't let the left steal the governor mansion or a Senate seat Voter fraud is real”

JOE SCARBOROUGH (CO-HOST): [Democrats] seemed a lot more effective this year in finding candidates that culturally matched the district they ran in.

NOAH ROTHMAN (ASSOCIATE EDITOR, COMMENTARY MAGAZINE): Mostly, and that is where they did well. Places where they did not, they drove off the ideological cliff. You mentioned the suburbs of Pennsylvania, in Bucks County. One of the candidates out there, a guy named Scott Wallace, grandson of former Vice President Henry Wallace, the apple did not fall far from the tree. He ran a very far-left campaign and he lost a key district for the Democrats because, I think, he went a little too far.

Another candidate where we've seen didn't perform especially well who is a progressive darling is Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. And I'm going to introduce my grievance of the morning here, because we have seen now A1 of The Washington Post, A1 of The New York Times discussing the recounts in Florida and the extent to which Republicans went too far rhetorically suggesting that there had been some theft, or even intention of theft involved in these recounts. Where you have not seen coverage of similar rhetoric is on the Democratic side. Where you've had people like Sen. Sherrod Brown, Sen. Cory Booker, and even Stacey Abrams herself suggesting that this election was illegitimate because there had been voter suppression. And that is a very serious charge, and we have not seen evidence commensurate with that charge. And I'd like to see some serious reflection on the part of Democrats there, because progressivism and paranoia are a deadly combination.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI (CO-HOST): Alright, Robert Costa thank you for being on this morning.

STUART VARNEY (HOST): What is this, what Stacey Abrams is saying, she [inaudible] the legitimacy of Brian Kemp. What does that tell you about the way the Democrats are going into 2020?

JEFF BALLABON (TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN ADVISER): Well, this is very troubling, I mean, this may be good, in their mind, for the party, but it's terrible for democracy and it's terrible for our country. This issue of building resentment at the notion that somehow there's a plan to steal your vote -- steal the votes, when it's just not true. We see massive attempted voter fraud on the Democratic side, we saw it in Florida, their only excuse is, it's not fraud, it's incompetence.

VARNEY: Well, hold on a second, Jeff. "Massive voter fraud" --

BALLABON: Attempted. Attempted.

VARNEY: Attempted. We saw it in Florida. What do you mean?

BALLABON: Well, I mean, their only excuse for it was, it's incompetence. But, you know, they knew going into this that [Rick] Scott had the votes. They knew that [Ron] DeSantis had the votes. But, the point of all these efforts, what Abrams said in Georgia, and what they're doing in Florida, is to undermine Americans' faith in our democracy and the democratic process. And that's really their agenda here, they're going to stoke the flames of resentment, which -- you know, they're calling for resistance. This is terrible for our country. It's terrible for the discourse, and it's leading, in some places, to violence.

...

VARNEY: Would you, as an adviser to the [Trump] campaign, would you say -- would you have the courage to say to Mr. President, "tone it down a little bit"?

BALLABON: I think the president, immediately after the election, it may have been his first public appearance, he called for a reduction in the tone. Remember? He sort of issued an olive branch to the media by saying, you know, if you tone this down, I won't feel like I'm forced to respond in kind. And, of course, the media didn't tone it down, and, of course, he responded in kind. And so, I would like to see all the tone come down somewhat. But right now, he's the one with the big pulpit, he's the one with the big platform, and when the media keeps on relentlessly attacking -- and, by the way, this Democrat message of resistance and resentment is one that the media keeps on pummeling us with, so he's responding in kind. I would love to see the rhetoric come down. I think the president would love to see the rhetoric come down. But, right now, he's got the only voice that's being listened to that counters the left's rhetoric.

LOU DOBBS (HOST): Let's turn to the press attempts, the national left-wing media the Democratic Party's effort -- let's be really honest, the Republican establishment's efforts as well as that of the radical Dems -- they have been trying to delegitimize this president since day one of his election, and it is--it has reached absurd levels, and did so quickly.

But now, it drags on and on. There are no new words for them to employ, no new tactics. These people have become onerous, they have become burdensome to anything amounting to civil dialogue. This president shouldn't have to put up with this nonsense and yet, he is tolerant of the Special Counsel that has been investigating for over two years--the FBI and the Special Counsel, this president and the charge of collusion. It's absurd.

While we are watching, you know, millions of illegal immigrants cross our borders, and many of them voting in the past election that's what, just a couple weeks ago, and having an immense impact.

If there are, as Yale and MIT say, 20 to 30 million illegal immigrants already in this country, know what that means for the districts of the U.S. Congress and the influence that they're giving to, for example, the state of California, Illinois, New York.

...

DOBBS: Why don't the Republicans-- why doesn't this administration stop it now? They--it's in their power. He has got troops on the border, he has called upon his Secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense. My God, what does it take? Are we just-- are we just sitting here, helpless against anyone who wants to cross that border, and to have their way with the American way?

STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): There have been a lot of allegations made. I'm sure, over the coming months, they're going to take a look at them, and if there's anything to them, we're going to know about it.

BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Turnouts greater than ever before. He got more votes than anybody else who ever ran for governor in that state. I also think it's important to bring up, I think, that the whole investigation will work to his benefit. I think that Stacey Abrams is doing something that I think a lot of other Democrats are doing, they're bringing into scrutiny, as Howard Dean has said, as Sherrod Brown has said. It's an unfair election and they want to bring up a race element to this, as if the white governor or white secretary of state was keeping Blacks from voting, and that seems to be a fight they want to have.

Update 11/21/2018 - The Check In: Minority Voter Suppression - Seth takes a break from breaking news to check in on the instances of voter suppression during the midterm elections that have been plaguing minority communities across the country.

In North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District -- where Republican Mark Harris seemingly defeated Democrat Dan McCready by less than 1,000 votes -- allegations of election fraud have been deemed serious enough that a bipartisan election board has refused to certify the results. Instead, the bipartisan State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement voted to hear evidence about “claims of irregularities and fraudulent activities” in the election. Fox News has almost completely ignored the allegations, despite the network’s usual interest in baseless fearmongering about “voter fraud.”

In the aftermath of the November election, state officials are investigating reports that hundreds of absentee ballots from 9th District voters in Bladen and Robeson counties “were illegally cast or destroyed.” One Bladen County voter, Datesha Montgomery, recounted that a woman came to her door and said she was collecting ballots in the area. When Montgomery explained that she had completed votes for only two of the races, the woman remarked that the other races weren’t important and said that she would finish the ballot for Montgomery. It is illegal in North Carolina to take someone else’s ballot and turn it in.

Quotes

"Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty." - Rumi

"God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that." - Joseph Campbell

"Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history." - Carl Jung

"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." - George Washington

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” - Dalai Lama

“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison. When the door is so wide open?” ― Rumi